


Four Times Franz Joseph Sees Death

by muffin_song



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muffin_song/pseuds/muffin_song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Franz saw Der Tod several times before meeting his own end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Franz Joseph Sees Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/gifts).



> This story to an extent discounts the scene in which Franz confronts Der Tod in the afterlife. But I thought the prompt was interesting, and I wanted to tackle Franz's experiences.
> 
> Many thanks to my awesome beta!

Franz had seen Der Tod several times before his final encounter.

 

*                                  *                                  *                                  *                                  *

 

The first time was after his mother died. 

Sophie’s illness was steadily becoming worse, and there had been an increasing number of times when the clergy had motioned him aside and had hinted it may be time to think about his final farewells.  Franz had not forgiven his mother for her actions, but he still could not bring himself to be so heartless as to forego this final obligation as his mother’s son.

Franz had dutifully sat by his mother’s bedside for countless hours. In his most desperate moments he forgot his anger and forgot even Sisi as he bleakly tried to imagine a world without Sophie.  Franz thanked the Lord every time a long night passed to find his mother still breathing in the morning.  Yet when he looked at Sophie, a woman whose sheer force of will had always bordered on supernatural, he could see an alien sense of resignation.  In his heart, Franz knew it was only a matter of time.

The final time the doctors gave him warning, it was late in the evening as Franz labored on a tiring, complicated legal document.  The chances that it would help Austria escape from its latest crisis were small, and yet he had no better options. 

Franz did not realize how much time had passed since he had told the doctors he would be there soon when one of the servants came rushing into his office, a white look on his face.  Franz sprang to his feet, the document forgotten.

By the time he reached his mother’s chambers the physicians had already closed Sophie’s eyes, and any previous whirl of activity had quieted into a perverse silence.  His mother had become so pale in the preceding weeks that there was physically little difference in her now than the last time Franz had seen her.  And yet he could not fool himself into believing she was merely resting.  The spirit that she possessed up until the very last was gone, leaving a lonely shell in its wake.

A beautiful man with alabaster skin sat holding his mother’s lifeless hand.  Franz blinked to clear his vision, but the man was still there.  He was dressed more like a king of some dark, mystical land than any doctor or servant Franz would employ in the palace.  He knew instinctively the man should not be there; there was something inherently unnatural about him.

The man looked up from his mother to meet Franz’s gaze.  Franz was used to men lowering their eyes in his presence, but this man instead seemed to be waiting for Franz himself to look down.  He would never forget the look in the man’s eyes.  It whispered to him, “You too will be mine one day.” A smile played at the edges of the man's lips, yet his expression remained cold.

Someone put a hand on Franz’s shoulder to ask him something about what should be done now.  By the time Franz turned around, the man was gone.  The only person by Sophie’s bedside was Dr. Zable, leaving Franz to wonder if the pale skinned man had ever existed at all.

 

*                                  *                                  *                                  *                                  *

 

The second time Franz saw Der Tod was in the days following the death of his son. 

Many years ago when his eldest daughter Sophie died in infancy, Franz remembered the sharp, fierce grief that had gripped him.  And yet some natural sense of order gave him comfort.  A child dying in her early years was a parent’s worst fear, and yet it was something that commonly occurred; a truth about the world that Franz had to accept.  What God gave to him, God could take away.

But there was nothing of God in Rudolph (who Franz could still picture running through the palace halls as a child) dying by his own hand.  Because he himself had wished it—no, because Franz had turned his son away.

Each time before that Franz had grieved he was consumed by a heavy, all-encompassing pain.  But in the days following Rudolph’s death Franz was incapable of feeling anything.  To do so would release a venom that would destroy him utterly.

Franz had always been a practical man, a characteristic he clung to even in the bleakest of times.  He worked countless sleepless nights in the weeks that followed, burying himself in work until he was too exhausted to think.  And yet even then the weight of his final words to his son would creep up on him.  “Don’t say another word.  I don’t want to hear it!”  He had told Rudolph he was an embarrassment.  His son had died believing his father was ashamed of him.  No number of treaties or sessions of court would change that cruel reality.

In desperation Franz at last turned to the well-stocked Habsurg stores.  Bottle after bottle of wines that cost as much as a family would make in a year, but Franz barely noticed.  “I don’t want to hear it!  I don’t want to hear it!”  Over and over again.  Instead of going away the feeling only worsened until finally Franz was a weeping, incoherent mess.

Franz intended to rise and pour himself another drink, but he lost his balance and his traitorous legs collapsed beneath him.  He cursed as he hit the floor, knowing in the back of his mind he would have a bruise to show for this tomorrow.  When he opened his eyes the pale-skinned man was standing over him, watching him coolly.  Worry and grief was quickly aging Franz beyond his years, but the man before him was as beautiful and ageless as before.

“Give me back my son,” Franz whispered.  He had no idea what had brought him to say this, but in the moment he said the words Franz knew who the man was and that Rudolph belonged to him now.  Rudolph belonged to death.

“Your son gave himself to me willingly,” the man replied, his voice devoid of emotion.  Franz understood the words, and yet when he tried to concentrate on the sounds he knew they were of no language he or any of his courtiers had ever studied.  “Even if I were willing, it is not within my power to return him to you.”  Despite years of maintaining a finely practiced regal bearing, this dark angel made Franz feel small.

Franz grabbed for the first thing in front of him—the remains of the bottle he had originally intended to empty.  He now hurled it at the man, cursing wildly.  But the bottle passed through him, breaking on the wall behind.  The man did not as much as blink.

“Give me back my son…” Franz knew in his heart it was futile, just as he knew he would repeat those words for eternity if it would return Rudolph to him.  The man crossed his arms, as if waiting.  “Why do you torment me so?”

“You yourself wish for death now.  Whenever anyone calls for me, it is my duty to come.”

Anger boiled in his chest.  It was the first real emotion Franz had felt since Rudolph died.  “Do you truly think that even in my darkest moments I would follow my son’s path?!  I still have a wife, and two children, and a country to protect.”  Fury filled Franz’s eyes.  “Away with you!” 

The man smiled cynically.  “It does not matter, ultimately.  Everyone belongs to me in the end.”  He turned from Franz then, leaving the most powerful man in Austria weeping and unable to rise from the floor.

 

*                                  *                                  *                                  *                                  *

 

Franz did not see Der Tod again until years after Sisi’s murder.  In the bizarre days that followed her passing Franz kept expecting to glimpse the angel of death, but instead found himself with only empty, harsh reality for company.  He wondered if the entire memory had been born of alcohol and grief.  But if that were the case, then perhaps it was just as well.  He had enough weighing on his mind without adding anything created from his own imagination.

It made Franz laugh bitterly to think that the only recent time in his marriage he could get his wife to be still long enough to spend time with him was when she was buried deep within the earth.  Still, if sitting by her grave did not erase Franz’s grief, then it did at least give him a physical place to mourn, which was in of itself a comfort.  He at least had a place to be with his thoughts of Sisi.

Cold bothered Franz less and less and he got older.  Sometimes when he could not force his thoughts to settle down and sleep was particularly elusive he would rise from bed and have a bleary-eyed coachman take him to the graveyard which held his wife’s body.  It was on the longest night of the year in a moment between dreams and consciousness that Franz saw his wife for the first time since she died.

Even at the age of sixty-one Sisi had still been beautiful, but years of lonely wandering had taken their toll on something deeper than her beauty.  There had been a fey spirit about Sisi when Franz first met her that had faded over the years.  Even when the Empress Elisabeth was still alive, Franz had grieved for the Sisi he had fallen in love with so long ago.  And truly, for how many years had she been the walking dead?

The Sisi that Franz saw before him now was as young as the day they met at Bad Ischl a lifetime ago.  But more than that, she was _right_ again.  There was a contentment in her eyes that made him want to weep.

 _He_ was there too, of course.  Franz was not surprised.  And if his old friend was there by her side, then Franz had to abandon any fancy that Sisi had returned to him.  And yet, to be able to look at her once more…

Sisi cupped the man’s face tenderly.  Both seemed unaware of him, leaving Franz to watch the two spirits as the night reached its end.  His mother and his son had seemed like mere possessions to this man, but in the presence of his wife he took on an air of vulnerability; perhaps even love.  If there was anyone who could capture the heart of death itself, of course it would be his Sisi.

Franz stayed in the graveyard until the sun finally began to rise.  Both figures faded like mist when the first rays of light hit the wet morning grass.  Franz’s coachman asked if he might not like to return to the palace, and Franz looked one more time where the two had been.

“Why not me, Sisi?” he whispered.

 

*                                  *                                  *                                  *                                  *

 

Franz was very old now.  In eighty-six years of life he had become a man who had outlived his parents, his wife, and even his children.  The world had become a very different place.  And yet had anything changed?  With his nephew assassinated, the world was at war.  After so many years, was there anything to show for his efforts? 

Franz found himself increasingly becoming tired, regardless of the time of day.  His health had begun to fail recently, but there was nothing to be done about it other than to continue the way he always had.

Then finally one evening Der Tod came to him.  Franz knew he was in his palace bedroom as he knew in the back of his mind that there had been doctors with him, but now he was alone.  Save for Der Tod, still as beautiful and ageless as ever.

“Why are you here?” Franz whispered.  His own voice was surprisingly weak.  He still could clearly remember being a young man full of life; how had he come to a point where he could barely speak?

When he met Der Tod's gaze the previous malice in the other man's eyes was gone, replaced by a strange kind of peace.  Was the lord of death taking pity on him?  Or perhaps this was Sisi’s final gift to him.  “It is your time, Franz.”

Franz opened his mouth to protest, to hate this man who had taken so many from him, but he could not find the words.  “I’m very tired," he confessed.  How long had he been waiting to tell someone that?  Even as he spoke he felt the weight of years slipping from his shoulders.

“I know,” said Der Tod, and as he heard the words Franz knew that this man did understand.  Death would not absolve him of any past sins, but Franz would at least die with somebody who knew him, someone who had been his unseen companion for so long.

It was getting harder to see.

“You’ll take me to them?” Franz whispered hopefully.

“Yes.”  Der Todd laid a hand on Franz’s brow in a way that reminded him of his father.  “You can rest now, Franz.”

Franz closed his eyes.  Somewhere not so far away, they were waiting for him.


End file.
